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I've used several different styles, 12"x12"x16' Oak being most common. Buy them out of Mississippi, 5 mats to a load. Very heavy. In Vietnam we used Philippine's Mahogany or Teak. I've used Southern Pine as well, didn't last for crap! Marsdon Matting works OK, light and strong, expensive too. Several types of polyester fabric are available, not as supportive though, without several inches of dirt or gravel on top. Used Cedar logs in Michigan, some Maple, Ironwood, and Poplar too.

We call them swamp mats and they are used occaisonally to work in soft areas. Usually contractors want to dump blast rock into a soft area to try stiffen up the surface and if its really swampy nobody wants to do the job.

A pipeline crew came threw upstream of me a few years ago it was a very wet spring and they had over a mile of them across a creek bottom they were hardwood 12x8x16 with cables through each end so hoes could pick'em up and move'm easy. Got a big rain and a bunch of them floated down stream took out couple my fences and hung up on my bridge washed out head wall and center support. They sent insurance man out to look at everything, but I talked to one of the crew bosses and we made an agreement since they had all of that nice equipment if they would move my bridge down stream about 50 feet every thing would be cool. An Aggie engineer had originally designed the bridge about 75ft in a curve in creek with bottom beams catching water when creek was bank full. I hauled rock to a narrower part of creek and cut bridge loose with torch, they came with 2 325 cats fixed pads out of rock sat mats on each end. Then picked up complete bridge with decking and walked it to new place took them about 45 minutes. I now have 20ft of bridge up above bank level on each end I did have to haul more rock to cover each end and I do have to go uphill to cross but its not going anywhere. They also took a hoe to my rock pit and dug me some rock and left me several mats, since then I have used some to make bridge on a small creek and have a few left for one more project when I get to it. Sorry for long winded post just wanted to point out you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar and it was mat related. Never been around track hoes until that time now want one bad .

Rig matting is often used to support construction equipment and utilized in resource based industries. In the Alberta oilfield industry there are two types of matting typically used; Rig mats (steel framed) and Swamp mats (interlocking wood).

Swamp mats also referred to as access mats are typically 8’ X 14’ and 6” thick. These 3 Ply mats are constructed with 2” X 8” boards. (Douglas Fir, Oak, or White Fir). Our swamp mats are held together with 174 - 1” flanged nuts for superior holding strength. You can check out [link removed] to see some pictures and uses of swamp mats

Rig mats a heavier duty mat come in standard sizes of 8’ X 40’ and 8’ X 20’ lengths. The are constructed with an I beam frame with spruce, pine, or fir inserts placed between the beams. The biggest problems with I beam mats are board damage and they are difficult to repair if they bend.

We use matting quite a bit up here.all our matting is the steel I-beam/wood style,DRILL RIG mats.10'x40' & 8'x40'.
Used 3 to dig a 1500m trench through a skag.parked on 2 and just kept moving the 3rd as needed.worked great.
We use them on our winter road for temp.bridges when overflows's are continuous,or snowfills wash out
ive used them to help spread the weight out while recovering a sunk 6Rcat out in the 1/2 frozen skag.used a d5 to push 8 mats out,then pushed snow,trees dirt,whatever we could on top the mats and then a straight pull up and outta the drink with 2 7G's and a 6R winches.
We've also setup a number of camps,and of course rigs,on them....only downside i find is the weight....some lighter matting may be in the near future!

I used to have some matte made out of four by fours bolted together in two opposing layers. They didn't last as long as I wuld like so I am going to replace e them with some made out of railroad ties held together with rebar. Im going to drill holes through eight or ten ties and side the rebar through then weld a plate on both sides of the rebar to keep the matts together.

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Have you ever tried Douglas-fir 3 or 4 beam rig mats for your matting applications? Douglas-fir has superior strength to other coniferous woods as well as abrasion and rot resistant properties. Check them out www.rig-mat.ca

Here in the NW, for years we used hemlock logs about 16 inch dia. and about 14 foot long, laced together with worn out 1-1/4 cable. Hemlock is cheap, more durable than anything else around here and plentiful, fir was too valuable as a merchantable log. A digging shovel could be out as far as two miles from end of road while building logging road. Usually the mats lasted for a season. But, with hemlock, you could always replace a section with some material along the right of way. We used hemlock for the runners on the sled we drug with us, usually around 36" dia. The sled had a two thousand gallon fuel tank and the powder magazine for shooting stumps. We liked the hemlock also since when it dried out it was harder than a lady of the evening's heart. All that went away in the early '80s when the big road building era came to an end in the woods. it was a fun job for a kid, hooking mats and shooting stumps.